USGAAP

In the United States, generally accepted accounting principles, commonly abbreviated as US GAAP or simply GAAP, are accounting rules used to prepare, present, and report financial statements for publicly-traded companies and many privately-held companies. Similar to many other countries practicing under the common law system, the United States government does not directly set accounting standards, in the belief that the private sector has better knowledge and resources. US GAAP is not written in law, although the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires that it be followed in financial reporting by publicly-traded companies. Currently, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) sets accounting principles for the profession. The US GAAP provisions differ somewhat from International Financial Reporting Standards though efforts are underway to reconcile the differences so that reports created under international standards will be acceptable to the SEC for companies listed on US markets without reconciliation to US GAAP. Read original article

GAAP for local and state governments—determined by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB)—operates under a set of assumptions, principles, and constraints, different from those of standard private-sector GAAP. Financial reporting in federal government entities is regulated by the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB).

Contents

• 1 Basic objectives
• 2 Fundamental qualities
• 3 Basic concepts
• 3.1 Assumptions
• 3.2 Principles
• 3.3 Constraints
• 4 Required Departures from GAAP
• 5 Setting GAAP
• 6 Precedence of GAAP-setting authorities
• 6.1 House of GAAP
• 7 Notes
• 8 See also
• 9 External links